Domeny Pomoc

What is a subdomain?

Video transcript

Hi there. In this video, you’ll learn what a subdomain is and how they’re used.

A subdomain is a subset, or a smaller part of a larger domain.

To better understand the concept of subdomains, let’s dissect a domain name from the top down.

A complete domain name includes a Top-level Domain or TLD, and a Second-level Domain, or SLD.

The TLD is the part that occurs right after the last dot in the domain name; this is why TLDs are sometimes called domain extensions. In this example .com is the TLD. While there are several types of TLDs, the most common are .com, .org, and net.

The SLD, or second level domain, is the part that occurs immediately in front of the last dot in the domain name. In this example, it’s the name of the business. The SLD is what makes a domain name unique.

Now this part… right here… that displays before first dot in the domain name - it’s the subdomain. That’s right… fun fact: WWW is actually a subdomain.

The good news is you don’t have to use WWW for your subdomain; instead, you can replace it with almost any word to create a subdomain with a unique web address, without having to purchase a new domain name.

Subdomains function as an extension of a registered domain name, allowing you to send visitors to a different web address, or allowing you to point to specific IP addresses or directories in your hosting account.The most common use for a subdomain is organizing or dividing website content into distinct sections.

If your website has a substantial amount of content on a given topic, or there’s content on your website that you want to draw attention to, say for marketing purposes, you can create a subdomain for it. A subdomain sets this content apart from the main site and gives it a unique web address, without having to register a new domain name.

Consider the dog-friendly winery, Molly’s Bark and Wine.

During her first year of business, the owner has amassed a large online photo collection of dogs who’ve visited the winery.

To highlight the business’ unique dog-friendly atmosphere and provide a dedicated space for her expanding photo gallery, she creates the subdomain, ‘dogs’, under her registered domain name, mollysbarkandwine.com.

The WWW in her domain name is replaced with the word ‘dogs’ and the new web address for the dedicated photo gallery is dogs.mollysbarkandwine.com.

As an added bonus, this subdomain is treated as a unique website address and in turn may drive new customers to her website.

Subdomains also offer a great way to create language-specific versions of a websites, or to accommodate information that may not be critical to the primary website, such as an events page, blog or store.

To recap, a subdomain is a subset of a registered domain name. Subdomains are most commonly used to divide websites into distinct sections that have unique web addresses.